


That Which Cannot Be Undone

by cara marie (genusshrike)



Category: Norse Mythology
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genusshrike/pseuds/cara%20marie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sif has regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That Which Cannot Be Undone

Once the skywalker was bound and buried, once he was out of our sight, the gods set about forgetting. We Asynjur returned to our weaving – as if there was not one missing from our group, as if her absence was an error that could be rewoven.

I worked, but my fingers were heavy, and my heart disconsolate.

I kept seeing Sigyn’s face. Sigyn’s face when her husband was captured. Sigyn’s face when one son tore the other’s throat out. I could not forget it: the look on her face was war.

Knowing this, I forgot my own nature and was short with the others. One day, when I would have left them early – because it wasn’t fair, even though they and I were complicit, and it wouldn’t help – Frigg took me aside, on the pretext of a fine wine she thought I might appreciate.

Really, she wished to fix her sharp eyes on me and ask if, that night, Loki had not spoken the truth.

Such a petty question.

‘Loki is ever the liesmith,’ I said. She fixed her hand on my shoulder and examined me, as if I were the one who made weapons from falsehoods.

‘You are in mourning,’ she told me.

I shook her off, and walked ahead so she should not see the anger on my face.

*

Here is the thing about Sigyn. She has always been easy to overlook – her reserve and her choice of husband always putting her a little on the outer. I would not say that the others disliked her, but they did discount her. They worried over the wolf and the serpent but they did not fear the small, steadfast woman.

They did not even think of her.

I thought of her. I thought of her and it tore at my guts. I thought of her and I tried to reconcile the irreconcilable – no, not the face of a woman betrayed by her own with the face of a lover; rather, the heart of a woman who loved her and who had let that ill be done.

*

Loki told a lie, yes he did.

It was a bigger lie than you think, for he has known me truer than many, truer than Frigg, who thought she saw me through.

It was a bigger lie but it held the truth at its centre. Yes, I have made a cuckold of Thor; I have done such a thing to one who loves me beyond measure. As any man loves a precious thing.

But I did not do it for Loki’s wicked tongue, oh no. I did it for a woman whose honesty was painful and whose loyalty worth all the treasures of the gods.

This is the thing no-one would suspect, that Frigg does not see. Loki did not bare my head for a simple prank. I myself chose to be infidelitous. I myself broke the vow of my very name.

And now Sigyn too I have betrayed.

It is not right.

*

When we got to the pantry, Frigg stopped me and turned my face to hers. I asked her, ‘You know what follows from binding Loki. How can you look at what we’ve done and not mourn?’

Frigg smiled sadly at me and stroked my hair, as if I were a child expressing a child’s fears. As if it were the simple fact of our doom that I mourned, rather than the self who thought we did not bring it down on ourselves. It’s not that Ragnorok is inevitable; just that we can’t help ourselves.

By my inaction, I have picked my side. And Sigyn, with her loyalty, has chosen hers. I will never be at ease again.

*

But I have a secret still, and that is a hope, small and shadowed. For in all the prophecies, in every doom imagined, my fate is not uttered. I will see my husband fall, but what shall become of me is unspoken.

So here is my hope (and it is a foolish one, for her forgiveness is beyond what I can earn). It is in this small thing: as my fate is not foretold, nor is hers.

The Norns may know what becomes of us, but I would not ask, would not extinguish that flame, that most desperate of dreams: that if I should survive, it should not be without her.

It is a fool’s dream. If our wyrd were to resolve itself by my death at her hands, I could not blame her.

I know which side of the battlefield I must be on.

But oh, if I could not take her hand and we could leave it together.


End file.
